ALBINISM IN EAST AFRICA 
169 
Owing to the rainy season being on, Mr. Turner had consider- 
able trouble in preserving the specimens, as decomposition sets 
in with extraordinary rapidity in the warm sfceamy atmosphere 
of the coast during the rainy season. 
Mr. Turner in his notes describes the visit of four lions to 
Manda Island, where they were attacking the natives* cattle. 
These animals must have swum or waded over from the main- 
land at low tide. The natives stated that the last occasion on 
which lions had visited Manda was seven years ago. 
Mr. Turner went to Manda with a party to hunt them, as 
they were taking cattle. He, however, met with no success. 
ALBINISM IN EAST AFRICA 
By S. L. Hinde 
Having seen Mr. C. M. Dobbs’ note, ‘ A White Kavirondo,* 
in the Journal of March 1916, your readers may be interested 
to know that I think as large, and probably a larger, per- 
centage of Albinos are born to negro parents in tropical Africa 
than are born to European parents in Europe. These children 
are seldom seen by Europeans, as many tribes destroy them at 
or soon after birth, and those that are allowed to survive are 
difficult to rear, being without protective pigment, even in 
the iris; this, owing to the blood-vessels being unscreened, causes 
the well-known pink or red eyes in Albinos. 
I have not my notes available, but, writing from memory, 
I saw one Albino child about six years old near Accra (West 
Coast) in 1891, and I think I saw three at least in the Congo 
Free State. In East Africa I saw one Albino ’Mkikuyu about 
four years old, near Old Fort Smith in 1896. The only adult 
I have seen was a ’Mkamba, a well-known character near 
Kitui Station, who I believe in the early days of the Protectorate 
was sentenced to imprisonment by Mr. C. R. W. Lane, then 
collector of Kitui, his crime being — dressing in khaki uniform, 
pretending to be a European official and blackmailing his 
fellow tribesmen. A ’Mkikuyu, of whom, with his parents, - 
Vol. VI.— No, 11, N 
